ILL Photo: AMS Shop Tour
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From: Chicago, IL, U.S
ILL Photo: AMS Shop Tour
I had been in talks with Frank over at AMS about taking shots of a certain very sick porsche for a while, but knowing how AMS does things I figured I might as well shoot some other cars while I was out there... When I finally arrived at the shop I figured I might as well just shoot around to give you the whole story on a shop that's at the top of its game.
The second you walk in the front door here, you realize that these guys are on their own level. Instead of being greeted by the walls of air fresheners and light bulbs that are so common in other shops, AMS has a showroom that is classy and straight to business. High dollar parts and a fully built engine sitting in the showroom are only the beginning for this shop.
As you walk through the employees only door into the back, you expect what you see at every other shop. Instead of a small and dark room with one lift, or an endless warehouse, AMS has quite literally, everything...
A few spare engines sitting around getting wrenched in the giant workspace:
The packing area, and the only time I saw it empty and motionless while I was there:
Need some fluids? They might have enough to take care of you. haha:
The back room is home to the less mechanical, and more technical work, it also houses the AMS shop Evo X time attack car which we'll take a look at a bit later.
AMS helps you stay cool... And it starts right here:
Sign directly above this chart should read "Get to work!" A long list of things to do awaits the guys working at AMS:
Being that I know nothing about the technical aspect of building cars, I felt implied to just walk around going "What does this one do? What does this one do? What does this one do?" Instead of annoying them to the point that they kicked me out of the shop, I just bit my tongue.
The shop dog must have walked into half of my shots, but who could get mad at this face:
AMS built, Canadian piloted rally car was chilling around the shop waiting to get some work done:
A shot of it with a customer drag car... Shooting for 1100whp:
AMS works on skylines now?
AMS is in the process of developing a new exhaust for the GTR. Nice piping, clean welds, very typical of their crafstmanship:
This particular exhaust was going to be made to work with the oem exhaust tips, but AMS says that the production model will have a unique quad outlet setup:
AMS drag evo... Need I say more?
Apparently it gets tucked away at night with a very sexy bunkmate, a mild setup time attack Evo X:
As the shop closes up, all the cars move inside... It's not often you see this many hot cars sitting in one place:
In proper AMS fashion, they have taken a brand new car and stripped it down to a bare shell to be built for time attack duties. This car will undoubtedly be a monster, and it's safe to say you'll be seeing more of it:
In-house craftsmanship down to the minute details:
Most importantly, here is the whole reason behind my trip out... Got to catch this porsche doing some dyno pulls, and I can assure you it sounds as mean as it looks.
This '84 911 Carrera started off like any other naturally aspirated carrera, and has recently been transformed into the beast you see here. The motor build consists of a fully built 3.3L with twin plug race heads, T4 turbo kit that was custom fabricated in-house by AMS, powered by a DTAfast EMS, and a 917 - 4 speed transmission with a Haggart precision race shifter.
Buddy Club bucket seats, Suede 350mm Sparco Monza steering wheel, and 4 Pt. Roll bar cover the interior mods... It's clean simple and to the point:
The car is sitting proper on RSR- 935 Rebel Racing x Bilstein coilover conversion. Most importantly are the 3 piece ZE Forged wheels, sized in 17x11 and 17x14, and I believe Frank said these were fitted to 315's or 335's out back due to the massive RSR flares
454whp and 417 wtrq... Not bad for a 2300 streetcar, but Frank has his sights set on 500whp once he tends to a few issues:
Frank has assured me that once the porsche is finished I'll be able to re-shoot it, so look forward to that and maybe more from AMS in the future.
And be sure to visit illphoto.blogspot.com for more of my shots.
The second you walk in the front door here, you realize that these guys are on their own level. Instead of being greeted by the walls of air fresheners and light bulbs that are so common in other shops, AMS has a showroom that is classy and straight to business. High dollar parts and a fully built engine sitting in the showroom are only the beginning for this shop.
As you walk through the employees only door into the back, you expect what you see at every other shop. Instead of a small and dark room with one lift, or an endless warehouse, AMS has quite literally, everything...
A few spare engines sitting around getting wrenched in the giant workspace:
The packing area, and the only time I saw it empty and motionless while I was there:
Need some fluids? They might have enough to take care of you. haha:
The back room is home to the less mechanical, and more technical work, it also houses the AMS shop Evo X time attack car which we'll take a look at a bit later.
AMS helps you stay cool... And it starts right here:
Sign directly above this chart should read "Get to work!" A long list of things to do awaits the guys working at AMS:
Being that I know nothing about the technical aspect of building cars, I felt implied to just walk around going "What does this one do? What does this one do? What does this one do?" Instead of annoying them to the point that they kicked me out of the shop, I just bit my tongue.
The shop dog must have walked into half of my shots, but who could get mad at this face:
AMS built, Canadian piloted rally car was chilling around the shop waiting to get some work done:
A shot of it with a customer drag car... Shooting for 1100whp:
AMS works on skylines now?
AMS is in the process of developing a new exhaust for the GTR. Nice piping, clean welds, very typical of their crafstmanship:
This particular exhaust was going to be made to work with the oem exhaust tips, but AMS says that the production model will have a unique quad outlet setup:
AMS drag evo... Need I say more?
Apparently it gets tucked away at night with a very sexy bunkmate, a mild setup time attack Evo X:
As the shop closes up, all the cars move inside... It's not often you see this many hot cars sitting in one place:
In proper AMS fashion, they have taken a brand new car and stripped it down to a bare shell to be built for time attack duties. This car will undoubtedly be a monster, and it's safe to say you'll be seeing more of it:
In-house craftsmanship down to the minute details:
Most importantly, here is the whole reason behind my trip out... Got to catch this porsche doing some dyno pulls, and I can assure you it sounds as mean as it looks.
This '84 911 Carrera started off like any other naturally aspirated carrera, and has recently been transformed into the beast you see here. The motor build consists of a fully built 3.3L with twin plug race heads, T4 turbo kit that was custom fabricated in-house by AMS, powered by a DTAfast EMS, and a 917 - 4 speed transmission with a Haggart precision race shifter.
Buddy Club bucket seats, Suede 350mm Sparco Monza steering wheel, and 4 Pt. Roll bar cover the interior mods... It's clean simple and to the point:
The car is sitting proper on RSR- 935 Rebel Racing x Bilstein coilover conversion. Most importantly are the 3 piece ZE Forged wheels, sized in 17x11 and 17x14, and I believe Frank said these were fitted to 315's or 335's out back due to the massive RSR flares
454whp and 417 wtrq... Not bad for a 2300 streetcar, but Frank has his sights set on 500whp once he tends to a few issues:
Frank has assured me that once the porsche is finished I'll be able to re-shoot it, so look forward to that and maybe more from AMS in the future.
And be sure to visit illphoto.blogspot.com for more of my shots.
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Joined: May 2005
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From: murrrrland
Re: ILL Photo: AMS Shop Tour
ams is pretty much THE go to shop for evo needs. my friend here in md drove to ams just to get one of their gt35r kits installed and tuned. after driving that car 4 years back, it made me want an evo til this day 
i remember when they build this street car like 3-4 years back and it was the first street evo 8 to hit 800whp then 900whp. their work is top notch
i remember when they build this street car like 3-4 years back and it was the first street evo 8 to hit 800whp then 900whp. their work is top notch
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,628
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From: South Orange Conty, CA
Re: ILL Photo: AMS Shop Tour
Catch any BMWs there? AMS is coming out with the first 3" single exhuast for the 335i and I'm pretty sure they are working on a single-turbo upgrade kit for the N54--should make sick power if they can figure out the fueling. AMS 
